Empire State games postponed due to inclement weather

Due to inclement weather in Ithaca, the Ivy League has adjusted the men’s basketball schedule for the weekend.

Cornell will be taking on Princeton on Saturday and Penn on Sunday. Columbia will host Penn on Saturday, and Princeton on Sunday. All four games are slated to tip-off at 2 p.m.

It rained all night in Upstate New York before freezing and turning into snow. Between 7 a.m. and 1 p.m., it snowed about a foot in Ithaca. The university canceled classes around 10 a.m. and closed around noon.

The team will still honor their Ivy League champion 1988 and 2010 teams over the weekend.

 

Princeton men make just enough shots when they need to versus Harvard

Saturday night in the Ivy League … you just never know!

The Tigers canned 13 three-pointers Saturday evening against the visiting Harvard Crimson. They needed every one of them, plus two Richmond Aririguzoh free throws with 3.9 seconds to go, to hold off the relentless Crimson, 70-69, before the largest home crowd in recent memory.

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Princeton women control the inside, defeat Harvard for weekend sweep

Princeton used its inside strength to outrebound Harvard by 15 and score 18 more points in the paint to cruise past Harvard, 60-46, Saturday night at Lavietes Pavilion.

With the game tied after the first five minutes, the Tigers (15-1, 3-0 Ivy) closed out the frame on an 8-0 run to finish with a 17-9 advantage.  Princeton stretched the lead to 14 at the three-minute mark of the second quarter before Jeannie Boehm, Maggie McCarthy and Maddie Stuhlreyer led the Crimson (11-6, 2-2) on a 7-0 run.  With one possession left in the half, Carlie Littlefield got the ball to an open Bella Alarie, who calmly hit a three from the top of the key to make it 32-22.

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Princeton men smother Dartmouth, 66-44, after three-week break from Division I competition

Coming out of the last of the historic three-week schedule interruptions required by the antiquated Princeton academic schedule, coach Mitch Henderson, as usual, did not know what to expect from his team.

Three years ago, Dartmouth on the road awaited the Tigers after the break. The Big Green were more than ready for the sluggish, rusty Princeton squad, who might have been looking ahead to the next evening’s matchup with Harvard. In any event the Tigers in Hanover went to the locker room at halftime trailing for the first and only time that Ivy season. Only a heroic second half effort by Player of the Year Spencer Weisz saved the Tigers that night en route to a 16-0 record against Ivy competition.

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Can the Princeton men contend for an Ivy League title?

It feels like déjà vu all over again.

For the second year in a row, the Princeton men’s basketball team is emerging from its exam break at the top of the Ivy League standings and looking primed to make a run for an Ivy League title after sweeping arch rival Penn in back-to-back games to open the conference season.

Stop me if you’ve heard this before.  Exactly one year ago, the 2018-19 Tigers stood in exactly the same position.  That Princeton squad of a year ago started conference play by sweeping Penn in back-to-back games and then beating the New York schools on the road to start the Ivy campaign at 4-0.  Hopes of an Ivy League title began to rise until calamity struck and Princeton lost the services of one of its transcendent stars, Devin Cannady.  Without their senior co-captain, the Tigers slumped through the rest of the Ivy season, losing six of their final 10 regular season games and finishing a disappointing third in the conference standings.

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Depth comes up big for No. 25 Princeton in impressive win at the Palestra

The long awaited and eagerly anticipated showdown between the Penn and Princeton women to open the Ivy season was played at the Palestra Saturday. The two teams came into the contest with a combined record of 22-2, each with but one blemish. First-year Tiger coach Carla Berube stated that she was thrilled to make her Ivy debut in one of the most iconic venues in all of college basketball.

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Penn-Princeton rematch: Keys to the game

Penn may have been the host of its matchup with Princeton Saturday, but it was the Tigers who made themselves at home at the Palestra.

The Tigers, fueled by Ryan Schweiger’s career-high 27 points, defeated the Quakers 78-64 in their first meeting of the year. The two teams will meet again on Friday at Jadwin Gym. The Quakers will need to make several adjustments to walk away victorious. Here are the keys to victory for both teams.

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Princeton’s studs shine under the Palestra lights

Mike Tony’s excellent breakdown of Saturday night’s Penn-Princeton collision leaves little left unsaid, but let me add some comments from the Tiger perspective for the sake of context.

No one expected either team to dominate the other, although the early line favored the Quakers by 10. As game time approached a lot of people grabbed the points moving the line to seven or less by tip-off.

Shockingly, the score was tied on only two occasions in the first three minutes. From that point on Penn managed to get within four just once, with 3:48 remaining in the first period. Schwieger then found another gear, canning eight of his career-high 27 in the closing moments of the first half. A Jaelin Llewellyn three-pointer helped as well, as the Tigers ran the lead from four to 12, 39-27, at the end of the half.

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How Penn arrived at another letdown against Princeton

Princeton shot just 2-for-11 from deep, got outscored by double-digits in second-chance and fastbreak points and didn’t score a field goal in the game’s final 6:37.

And yet the Tigers never trailed en route to a surprisingly easy 78-64 win over Penn at the Palestra Saturday night, their sixth win there against Penn in six seasons (including their 2017 Ivy League Tournament quarterfinal victory).

So what did Penn (7-5, 0-1 Ivy) do wrong against Princeton (5-8, 1-0) this time?

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